The Death of Outsourcing
Posted on January 8, 2007
Filed Under Business, Web Development | 2 Comments
I guarantee that you are doing more of the work for you business than you need to be doing.
There are two very important keys to running an efficient online business.
- Out-tasking (not outsourcing)
- Systematizing any repeating processes (we will cover this in a later article)
You should have noticed that I didn’t say outsourcing. That is very important. We’ve attempted to outsource entire projects multiple times and have had numerous problems every time.
The key to efficiently getting things done in your business is out-tasking.
Out-tasking
Out-tasking at its root is simply breaking down a larger more complex project into simple pieces that can be done by a specialized third party. We’ve been doing out-tasking for years but I typically called it outsourcing. It wasn’t until I read Rich Shefren’s Internet Marketing Business Manifesto that I learned that we had actually been doing what he called out-tasking not outsourcing.
When You Do Anything In Life, Make Sure You Are Playing To Win
Posted on January 2, 2007
Filed Under Business, Personal Development, Popular | 1 Comment
I learned a valuable lesson this holiday season, and it was all done by watching college football.
It was a simple lesson that I’ve heard many times but until I saw it in action, I did not fully understand the power of it.
Play To Win
If you want to succeed at anything in life, make sure you approach it with an attitude that you a playing to win.
Expect the unexpected
Many of you may have missed it but the best college football bowl game may have been the least popular one. Boise State was not expected to be able to play with Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl this year. Not only did they play with them, they looked like a team that expected to win the game.
Even in the face of adversity as they were down by seven with 0:51 left in the game, they were playing like they came there to win no matter what it took. They ran some of the most impressive (and risky) plays but the most impressive move by the Boise State team didn’t happen during a play, it was a decision that was most likely made a few weeks ago.
If You Don’t Make It Necessary Now, You’ll Hate Yourself Later
Posted on December 21, 2006
Filed Under Business, Personal Development, Popular | Leave a Comment
Why is it we describe the things we want to do in life as important instead of necessary?
The definition of important is “marked by or indicative of significant worth or consequence” while the definition of necessary is “of an inevitable nature” or “absolutely needed”.
Instantly you can see the difference between the two words.
Look at the things that you do on a regular basis. A normal day will most likely involve you eating, going to work, and sleeping. Why is it that we do these things?
Because they are necessary.
If you decide that it isn’t necessary to go to work, then you won’t go. But the consequence of that decision is probably going to be losing your job.
So lets face it, what we do on a daily basis are things that are necessary.
How do you describe your dreams?
Things that you want to do are typically considered important but not necessary. That’s why they never get done. Until something makes the jump from important to necessary, you will never get to it. There are simply too many other necessary things in life to get to those that are just important.
The Secret To Growing Your Business Exponentially
Posted on December 18, 2006
Filed Under Business, Web 2.0 | Leave a Comment
Naturally, with it being the end of the year, I have been spending some time reflecting on the previous year in order to get idea of where I want the business to go in 2007. As I thought about 2006 a couple of significant standouts came to mind.
The first example that came to mind was MySpace. In 2006 it hit its peak (at least in popularity) by becoming one of the most visited websites on the Internet. I’d say that a site created by one guy which now has traffic levels comparable to MSN and Yahoo is doing something right. And apparently News Corp. thought the same because it purchased MySpace for a few billion dollars.
Or what about the huge the explosive growth and eventual acquisition of YouTube. It went from a pretty cool website to a $1.6 Billion part of the Google machine.
Wouldn’t you like your business to have the same kind of results in 2007 that these businesses experienced in 2006? I know I would. That got me thinking and the one thing that I realized about all these success stories of the past year is that they all seemed to grow exponentially.
So I asked myself, “What caused these businesses to grow so fast?” and without a huge multi-million dollar advertising budget behind them. They did it with a business model and methodolgy that allows its users to help add to and grow the content and community of their business.
The popular name that most have adopted for this model and methodology is “Web 2.0″. And for the purposes of this article, I’m going to stick with that name.
HitTail & The Long Tail Concept
Posted on December 17, 2006
Filed Under Search Engine Marketing, Traffic Generation | Leave a Comment
I found this cool little tool that helps you expand your reach in the search engines by utilizing The Long Tail Concept. It’s a free service so I figured I would give it a try. I will update later on how the test goes.
HitTail reveals in real-time the least utilized, most promising keywords hidden in the Long Tail of your natural search results. We present these terms to you as suggestions that when acted on can boost the natural search results of your site. It’s that simple.
The Long Tail Concept
The long tail is an economic concept that says the collective demand for less-popular items (in green) can exceed the all the most popular added together (in red). Online music stores are a perfect example because they can carry large collections of music just as easily as just a small selection. The product is digital and there are no inventory issues. So, the pay-per-click industry is now using this concept to encourage you to run ever-larger keyword buys. Their inventory of obscure, yet valuable keywords is inexhaustible. But the dirty secret of keyword marketing is that the longtail concept applies even better to un-paid search, and can eventually free you from your paid keyword campaigns. How?